Why LAGs Win

LAGs win. Not all LAGs, of course, but if you watch the $5-$10 or $10-$20 no-limit hold’em games in your area, there’s a good chance the best player in the pool plays a LAG style at least sometimes.

Loose-aggressive, or LAG, play is characterized by playing lots of hands—including some bad ones—and then betting frequently post-flop. At many tables, in many lineups, it wins, and it wins faster than any other style.

But here’s the thing. It’s not a perfect style. In fact, if you tailor your strategy to counteract it, it’s actually trivial to beat. The reason why the LAG style wins is because it exploits the way most “solid” no-limit players have learned to play.

Postflop Aggression

The key to a LAG style isn’t the loose part. It’s the aggressive part. A successful LAG player could tighten up preflop on a dime and still win.

But this is not just blanket aggression in all circumstances. The good LAG player targets aggression to board textures that are commonly misplayed by typical players.

The main error that LAGs target is how typical players value no-limit hands. Most players draw hard lines between no-pair and pair hands. For example, a typical player would view a hand like A-10 on a 8-8-5 board as ace-high, but A-5 as two pair. While A-10 does indeed make a one-pair hand and A-5 makes a two pair hand, when a LAG is betting at you, the value of these two hands will tend to converge, and both hands become bluff catchers. It’s an error to play the two differently simply because they occupy different places on a poker hand chart.

Many players also draw hard lines between top pair and less-than-top pair hands. On a J-10-4 flop, Q-J is top pair, but Q-10 is not. This is, of course, factual. But again, in many common playing scenarios against a LAG, the two hands run together in value.

LAGs leverage these errors by creating situations where their opponents should be valuing hands like these similarly. Then they count on their opponents folding too frequently the hands occupying lower rungs on the hand chart.

It’s in the mundane hands where LAGs make a lot of their profit. They three-bet preflop, then bet half pot on the flop and again on the turn (when the board texture supports it), and they watch their opponents fold everything but top pair. On a flop like 8-8-5, the LAGs know that their opponents will often be stuck with weak ace-high, king-high, and queen-high hands that they will fold by the turn solely because of these hands’ lowly position on the poker hand chart.

Action Image

LAGs can play loosely preflop because they win so many hands with flop and turn bets. They don’t need to make good hands often if their opponents are willing to fold too frequently and predictably on many board types.

But another bonus for the LAG is that this loose preflop play often creates an action image in the minds of other players. This causes these players to try to pick off bluffs from the LAG on boards and in situations where the LAG actually won’t be bluffing very often.

For example, say a LAG opens for $30 in a $5-$10 game from three off the button and gets called on the button and from the big blind. There’s $95 in the pot and $2,000 behind.
The flop comes A 7 4. Everyone checks to the LAG, who bets $90. The button folds, and the big blind calls.

The turn is the 8. The big blind bets out $150 into the $275 pot. The LAG raises to $450. The big blind calls.

The river is the 4. The big blind checks, and the LAG shoves for $1,460 into the $1,175 pot.

Typical LAGs who have tuned their games to play against recreational players at the $5-$10 level won’t be bluffing very often in this situation. The big blind is marked with an ace due to the check-call on the ace-high board, the turn donk bet, and the call of the turn raise.

Also, a typical recreational player will make the decision whether to call it off with the ace on the turn after getting raised. After betting the turn and getting raised, with a hand like A-J, for instance, the player will think, “This guy never stops betting. If I call this raise, I have to be ready to call a river shove too.”

The LAG knows this dynamic well, so while it’s possible that the LAG is bluffing occasionally on this bet, usually the LAG will be able to beat A-Q after this action. Overall, it will be a bad river call for the big blind player holding A-J.

How To Beat LAGs

As I said at the beginning of the article, beating LAGs is trivial if you tailor your strategy to do it. Step one is to play tight preflop. When you play consistently stronger hands than the LAG does, you give yourself an advantage that can carry throughout pots.

Step two is to look for bet-sizing tells. LAGs in cash games often try to use smaller bets when they are bluffing on earlier streets, but then when they are trying to use their action image to get calls, they switch to large bets.

Step three is to think about what your hand might look like to the LAG. Typical LAG opponents will have to think you can have a hand you might fold to try to bluff you. For example, say the flop comes K-7-6 and you check and call. The turn is a nine, and you check and call again. A LAG will know that while you can have a king, there’s also a good chance you have a hand with either an eight or a ten in it—perhaps along with a pair of nines, sevens, or sixes.

So, if the river is a queen and the LAG bets, you might want to call even if you have only that pair of nines, sevens, or sixes. The LAG would likely check it down if he held a queen, since it loses to a king and beats the pairs most players would tend to fold. A river bet from the LAG, therefore, likely means either that he can beat a good king or that he’s bluffing. Since it’s hard to beat a good king, and since you’re getting odds on a call, this is probably a good situation to try to pick off a bluff.

Final Thoughts

LAGs rely on winning a high percentage of their pots to profit. They need their opponents to make erroneous folds due to a misunderstanding of board texture. They also benefit when their opponents give off tells while simultaneously ignoring the LAGs bet-sizing tells.

If you want to beat a LAG, the recipe is simple. Play tight. Don’t fold easily to small bets. Don’t try to “play back” very often. Just check, let the LAGs bet, and snap them off. ♠

Ed’s newest book, The Course: Serious Hold ‘Em Strategy For Smart Players is available now at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the training site redchippoker.com.